Thursday, May 14, 2009

Garden Fun

I spent the end of April watching the yard. Ever since we moved we've wanted to plant a garden. Since I'm home, it was my job to see which spots in our yard get 6+ hours of sun. This seems like a simple task, easily completed in a day or two. Unfortunately our yard has enough trees that direct sunlight is rather scarce.So I took pics of all the best spots at different times of the day, ordered and layered the pics so I could see the patterns of sun, and after hundreds of photos I came to the conclusion that: There is not a single spot in our huge backyard that gets even 4+ hours of sun.This left either the front yard, side yard, or deck. We couldn't convince ourselves that planting in either the front or side yards were good ideas unless we wanted a big box in the middle of the lawn. Leaving the deck as our last garden option. I guess our other option was to cut a few hundred foot trees down, but this didn't seem like a good idea for obvious reasons.

After multiple trips to Home Depot and Pike Nurseries, we came out with three tomato plants, one bell pepper, various herbs, and three blueberry bushes. Not to mention dirt, shovels, pots, etc.Did you say blueberry bushes? Yes. Brian grew up with blue berry bushes and has touted the wonders of growing up with them since we met, so I agreed. Plus it was buy two get the third free. After reviewing the photos of the yard, we chose a spot that will probably work. We'll see.

I was not sad at all to see these gangly bushes go.

New blueberry bushes!

I don't think Brian was sad to see the bushes go either, but as he did all the heavy work while I raked leaves and potted tomatoes. So I don't think he could quite see the fruits of his labors till a few days later.